Apple, Steve Jobs, and investors are all still trying to adjust to Jobs sitting at home and not in the office

A recently published report from the Wall Street Journal indicates that although he's technically on medical leave from his company, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is still closely involved with a couple of different projects at the company.

Company COO Tim Cook handles day-to-day operations at the Cupertino-based company, but Jobs is working from home on strategies and products projects -- he evaluates products and product plans, and remains very close to the company's biggest projects.

Apple is reportedly working on a new version of the iPhone along with a new portable device that is bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a regular notebook.

Apple refuses to discuss how the absence of its CEO affects the company, but the Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing had this to say: "We're just trying to do what we do every day." The company has worked hard to try and convince investors and analysts that despite Jobs no longer working full-time at Apple, his presence doesn't effectively make or break the company.

Apple expects to have Jobs back in the office sometime in June, but that's a tentative date that must be cleared by his doctors. In January, Jobs temporarily stepped aside to deal with a hormone imbalance that made him noticeably slimmer and weaker, other executives and journalists said at the time. Shortly after, he said the condition was worse than previously thought, and would leave the company for six months.

Aside from the publicly disclosed hormone imbalance, little else is known about other possible health issues that plague the Silicon Valley icon. Jobs underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer about five years ago -- and he's reportedly cancer-free and healthy -- but specific reasons for his illness haven't been released.

Several members of Apple's board of directors are speaking with Jobs and his doctors, attempting to figure out when he'd be able to safely return to regular work days again.

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This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

If you like Apple, buy it, if you don't, than don't buy. Whatever one thinks about the products or the company I think we should leave Steve Jobs alone.

It is a very ugly image: people being concerned about their investments who talk about such a personal theme as someone's own health. He should be allowed this basic dignity, to take care of his problems in private.

Honestly, Steve Jobs is a big reason for me not purchasing Apple products. When ATI accidentally leaked information about the G4 Macs a whole day before Macworld, he threw a tantrum and had all ATI's cards ripped out of the machines and removed all mention of them from his keynote speech. I'm all set with giving any of my money to a company run by someone as unprofessional as he is snobby.

Let's face it, Apple probably wouldn't be where they are today without Jobs. That's why his leadership has a large effect on investors.

Yes, Jobs was quite annoyed. He did not throw a tantrum. ATI was under a legal obligation to not pre-disclose Apple products. Apple legally could have sued ATI over it but did not.

Yes, he did not mention ATI's video cards in his keynote. However, how many times has Jobs mentioned video cards in his keynote? The only time I can recall is when he introduced the 30" monitor and said they had a special card that supported two dual link DVI outputs to concurrently support two 30" monitors from one card. He did not have all the ATI cards ripped out of the machines.

Yes, Jobs has a very oversized ego. No, (even though you didn't mention it) he is not the creative genius behind Apple. Job's only true talent is being able to tell what is the next big thing when he sees it or hears of it (not always, e.g., the Mac Cube, but much more often than not).

Do you think Gates or Balmer or McNeally or Dell really have that much less of an ego that Jobs? Personally, I greatly doubt it.

Jobs isn't exactly unknown for throwing a fit when something doesn't go his way. When have you ever heard about Gates flipping his lid? Of course, considering Microsoft's position he hardly ever had a reason. Balmer and the rest I could care less about.

Yikes. I realize you guys are mostly kiddies, and as such, have only been exposed to the amazing Microsoft revisionist history....

Gates was NOTORIOUS for the childish temper tantrums he pulled regularly when he was directly at the helm. He used to terrorize employees in meetings, picking on and insulting some relentlessly.

At other times, he would do things like go into a hissy rage, pushing programmers aside and declaring he'd "do it himself!!!" (only to fool around for a few minutes before remembering he has no actual skills!)

Apple is a publicly traded company, you are kidding yourself if you think the health of the health of the CEO that brought Apple to the position they are in today is not anyone's business.

It all comes with the territory, nobody is forcing Jobs to remain the public's eye when he is most obviously sick. I really doubt he minds either, it just keeps the attention on Apple, just how he likes it.